FEATURED

I remember back in 95 when Jay-Z made the bold proclaimation that he was about to redefine rap. Maybe he did. However, the jury is still out as to whether or not he improved the overall standing of hip hop, in my mind at least. Now, in the year 2003, I will make the bold statement. The Listener has given hip hop a new face, and it is once again beautiful. The CD opens with a somewhat tribal chant which leads into a Deepspace5 collaborative effort FYI.

You immediately identify the Listener as the guy from Deepspace5, though chances are, you already knew that. What makes this album so good, so special, so revolutionary if you will, is the command that the Listener has on each track. The music is diverse although, despite each track standing alone with a completely different sound and feel, they all mesh together very well too. The Listener's delivery is ridiculous. It may take you four or five listens before you realize, hey, those lines don't rhyme or hey, that doesn't fit the beat like last time. The thing is, it doesn't have to, and it's as if no one ever told you before. I mean, you have to hear a Coltrane improv to know that a saxophone solo doesn't have to fit the pattern of the rest of the song or of any song you've ever heard before. It's the freedom of expression, poetic license, it's creativity and we just aren't used to it. And that's what makes it so cool. When the Listener raps he's not confined to the pattern of the norm, unlike most rappers he controls the beat instead of vice versa. Topically, Whispermoon covers many subjects, from purpose to suicide, but I think overall the theme is honesty. If there's a single moral statement to the CD it's likely that we should all be more honest with each other. And I can honestly say, this is probably the dopest release of the year.